long ball

So I read everything on the mlb website regarding the brewers tv, but I’m still slightly confused. I am an out of market fan (Illinois) and I’ve subscribed to mlb tv for 20ish years. 1) the $100 option- is this exclusively for in market fans? Or if I only want brewers games as an out of market fan can I buy the $100 option. 2) the $200 option- is this exclusively for in-market fans? If I as an out of market fan purchase this bundle, would I be subject to blackouts on brewers games when they’re playing the cubs and white Sox? basically my goal is to be able to watch all brewers games, even when they play the cubs and white Sox. I used to be able to watch cubs and white Sox on my cable package- but that’s more difficult has become more costly and comber some as those teams have created their own RSNs.

*Insert spider man meme of Dunn/Capra and Leonard/Hamilton* Ultimately I think we see this play out a lot like 2025. We start the season with an extremely underwhelming platoon of Eddys Leonard and David Hamilton at third base while Jett Wilkins gets “time to work on his third base defense” at AAA. Then some time in April, after Williams has had his service time manipulated…, he gets the call at third base. Sprinkle in some Brock Wilken as well at some point if he’s hitting tanks in AAA. the main issue I see is that Williams was already the main contingency plan at SS in the event that Ortiz is putting up a ops+ of 60 again. Or Mitchell gets injured and Blake Perkins is putting up an ops+ of 80 in every day work. I like the trade return we got and I agree that Durbin doesn’t have a ceiling higher than he showed in 2025. I am definitely nervous about the hole created at 3b. I’m nervous about contingency plans for SS and CF. I thought we needed an extra SP, but there were reasonable options available in free agency. Sure Harrison is hopefully a huge add for us, but it came at a cost of some stability on the offensive side of the roster. this feels like an unnecessary risk. I will mention one thing… we may be seeing an influx of rookies in 2027. Made, Quero, Fischer, Pratt, Lara, Burke, and Adams could all conceivably be pushing for an every day job in 2027. Now I don’t expect all of them to turn into big league regulars or all be plug and play instantly, but if they wanted to spread out the influx of young guys by creating a spot for Williams… that does make some sense to me.

I’m not going to lie, this thought also crossed my mind this morning. It’s crossed my mind several times over the course of the last few years. This roster construction with a bunch of swingman lefties and 5/dive righties made the thought creep in again. I’d be interested it seeing them try it, but I just don’t think it is sustainable over the course of a full season. it also doesn’t really align with the “win today” approach. if you have a 1 run lead after getting 3 from Gasser and 4 from Misiorowski … how hard is it to stay away from Megill and Uribe? I think it’s more of a strategic deployment like we saw last year a handful of times.

Aside from our own trade, there have been a bunch of minor transactions this morning. Seems like the 1-year veteran contracts are starting to roll in. Probably continue throughout the week as teams report to camp. Fedde was interesting, but I liked him more as a swing man than a true rotation option. Adding Harrison and Drohan this morning orobably makes it less likely we add a veteran arm anyway.

This is definitely surprising. I don’t know a lot about the guys we got back, but here are my take aways on each player in the trade. Durbin- almost like the Isaac Collins trade maybe? Selling high now before he reverts to a bench/utility role? I like Durbin and he played really well for us last year, but i also don’t think he has a very high ceiling. Arm strength will prevent him from being an elite defender and I’m not sure there’s a lot of improvement we can look for in the offensive profile. So if he’s a 3 win player at his ceiling, but likely to revert to a bench role for us in the next year or so then I understand selling now. Monasterio- he’s a solid enough utility player. But batting right handed was maybe a small roster tweak they wanted to address with their utility infielder. Seigler- ya I won’t say I’m upset that the Seigler experiment has ended. harrison- well he fits right into that group of Patrick, Henderson, Sproat, and Gasser for that 4 and 5 spots in the rotation. I thought we needed one more depth piece for the rotation- likely a veteran free agent. However, I don’t think we need that anymore. May still sign a rehabbing guy like Montgomery, but I don’t think we need a low upside innings eater like Quintana at this point. Drohan- holy lefties. Kinda seems like he might ride the bullpen shuttle in 2026 and beyond. Hamilton- he’s probably your Monasterio replacement but he bats lefty. So he might be a better roster fit than Monasterio? overall: probably a good value for the Brewers. We improved our rotation depth, something I think we needed. We added another arm to the bullpen shuttle- something I think we needed. the infield alignment is hazy to me. I’m not sure I’d believe there’s another significant move out there (like adding parades). If I had to guess today… Eddys Leonard and David Hamilton platoon somewhere on the infield to start the year. Then we will see a mixture of Jett Williams and Brock Wilken start to fill those innings starting in May.

They won’t. just have to hope that over a short sample of playoff games we run into enough or we get hot as a group. power is expensive. the Brewers aren’t paying for it and haven’t developed a lot of it.

Skubal winning his arbitration hearing is rather interesting. while this is definitely a win for the players, I at least a little concerned with what it means for low payroll teams in the future. If Skenes continues on his trajectory, does that mean the pirates timeline for trading him moves up? Is there any trickle down effect to earlier years of arbitration for this caliber of player? How does it affect more modest level of players entering their final year of arbitration? does Trevor megill now ask for $12m in arbitration next year instead of like $7m? He could compare himself to $14m helsley got or the $10m pagan got in free agency. Does Vaughn ask for $15m+? ultimately, we can only hope that we develop a player like skubal in the future where monstrous arb salaries are a concern. But even your every day players, leverage bullpen arms, or rotation arms could see a big boost in their final arb year. edit: I misunderstood the cba clause that allowed Skubal to compare himself to free agent contracts. He had to have 5+ years of service AND special accomplishments. So unless Contreras, Vaughn, or Megill wins mvp or the cu young this clause won’t really apply to them.

I hope Mitchell is healthy both for his own sake and for the Brewers. He’s been good when healthy and I think he’s our preferred option in CF when healthy. isaac Collins essentially filled in for Mitchell last year once he got hurt with Chourio playing CF. I wonder what the contingency plan is for CF in 2026 if Mitchell is out for an extended period of time. More Bauers in the OF with Chourio in CF is intriguing. Lockridge could potentially be that “late bloomer” or flash in the pan minor league veteran who contributes more than expects. The beauty of Jett Williams coming back in the Freddy trade is that he could be the contingency plan for SS or the OF in case we need it. Probably the most likely and maybe boring outcome is just more Blake Perkins in CF. (FWIW I’d be fine with Perkins being the primary starter in CF if we can get some more offense out of SS and the rest of the offense performs as well as last year)

Ya I saw that teams get about 50% of what they were previously getting through the RSN on average. So this is likely a short term hit to the revenue which stinks for a team who is already in the bottom third in terms of player payroll.

Suarez at $15m/1 year would’ve been a nice addition to this roster. We could’ve figured out how he fits in. Probably doesn’t even need to be an “either/or situation”. in a vacuum I’d say Suarez is a better player than Durbin in 2026. However, teams don’t operate in a vacuum. They constantly have to weigh talent, payroll, development, and club house fit. How Suarez fits into the defense isn’t a simple answer. DRS has always been down on his defense at third while FRV has been overall positive prior to 2025. No idea what the Brewers internal valuation would be on his defense, but they didn’t acquire him at the trade deadline when he went for a relatively low trade package. I think you could argue he was a more important target at the trade deadline than he was this off season. DH is occupied by Yelich and Contreras. it’s also worth noting that a $15/1 deal may not have even been an option for the Brewers. It’s possible suarez prefers the reds even if the brewers presented an equivalent offer.

I think the Reds got a pretty favorable deal there. Nice addition for them. Their line up definitely needed some help.

Ashby probably fits in this conversation for a different reason. His contract, even if he stays a reliever, is reasonable for how good he is, but the Brewers probably wont want to pay $7m+ for a reliever. 2026 $5.5 m 2027 $7.5m 2028 $9m club option 2029 $13m club option a high payroll team likely doesn’t hate spending that on a reliever as good as Ashby. Even that last club option.

Slow morning at work so I was playing around with innings pitched by our top 8 on the SP depth chart (I left Ashby, hall, and Zerpa out since I’m pretty sure they’ll be relievers). I totaled up all minor league, mlb, and mlb playoff innings. That’s the first number and the second number is their career high in innings (combined minors, majors, and mlb post season innings in a given year) woodruff: 106.2, 186.2 (2021) priester: 166, this was career high Misiorowski: 141.1, career high patrick: 171, career high gasser: 46.1, 137 (2022) sproat: 141.2, career high henderson: 103, career high crow: 50, 128 (2022) so Priester, Misiorowski, Patrick, and Sproat could probably give us a semblance of a full season if healthy. Gasser, Woody, Crow, and Henderson probably less so. So I actually feel better about potential inning restrictions than I did before looking into it. I also learned that the bulk of your starts are coming from your 6-8 guys (duh). now my main concern is basically giving away games due to having to trot out a non-competitive SP. I think we mostly did this in 2025. Even though we used 17 starters, Hall, Ashby, and Zastryzny were essentially planned openers. So that narrows it down to 14 starters and only 3 of those are what I’d last as “last resort” types. Combined they made 7 starts between Alexander, E Rodriguez, and Zimmerman. That’s pretty good if you ask me. where I’m seeing the potential issue is that our 9, 10, and 11th options last year were probably better than they are right now. Last year those 9-11 guys ended up being Civale, Cortes, and Gasser. Obviously those guys weren’t that good. Civale and Cortes were likely being counted on for much larger roles. But if we can add a veteran stabilizer (similar to Quintana last year) and maybe a rehabbing wildcard who might be ready mid season (canning, Montgomery, or Cortes) then I think I’d feel a lot better about the stability of the rotation depth. 1 injury at a time we can handle, but if we get hit with a rash of injuries like we did at times last year our depth is currently a big question mark for me. as an aside, I’d surely hope that they were willing to include Myers in the Freddy trade because they knew they would backfill the deficit it created on our SP depth chart by adding externally in a separate move.

In the brewers.com post from Mccalvy this morning Murphy was lobbying for a veteran starting pitcher. So I’m hopeful we end up with a quintana like addition this spring as well. Heyman tweeted yesterday a list of like 15 teams still eyeing starting pitching. The brewers weren’t on it, but there are still 15-20 free agent starting pitchers who are worthy of a big league deal. So there will be someone out there for us and I think they’ll be patient to find the cheapest one they think they can work with.

Of course as soon as this was published they signed a back up catcher. I’m guessing McGuire is probably a hair ahead of Quero for that job to start the year now. My only minor disagreement is i think Gasser is a slight favorite over Henderson and Sproat to land in the rotation to start the year. Gasser is older, left handed, and was trusted on the post season roster last year. He killed it in AAA while coming back from injury. I just think all else being equal I’d have Gasser in the rotation. Of course Sproat and Henderson will hopefully pitch a ton of innings for the brewers in 2026 so it’s really just splitting hairs when trying to predict the opening day roster.

Nothing particularly surprising about any of the position players. Either catcher depth or guys who could reach the bigs in 26/27. kuehner is interesting. He’s a bit on the older side since he turns 25 next month. I wonder if he’s going to be transitioned to a reliever with the potential of joining the shuttle squad at some point in 2026.

How far in the future are you wondering? Frelick and Turang are mainstays in the line up, but their last season of team control is 2029. Assuming neither is extended, how far in advance of free agency are they traded? Probably somewhere between 1-2 years. if I had to predict the 2028 opening day line up: DH Yelich C Quero and Dinges time share 1B Andrew Fischer 2B Turang SS Made 3B Peña LF Chourio CF Lara RF Frelick Durbin and Williams as super subs. (Notably absent: Joey Ortiz, Pratt, Burke, Wilken. Probably a mixture of trade, minor league depth, and failure to pan out) this is off the cuff and I am not married to this or prepared to defend it :)

Bishop Letson also gets a brief call out as a guy who just missed their top 100.

Ya it definitely feels like there are some competing priorities here for the organization if the focus on SS for Williams truly is from the Brewers and not just the player. Made is the best prospect of the group. I assume he is at AA to start the year. Ultimately no one is in his way and they’d move other players around to accommodate him. we all assume Pratt would start in AAA, but here comes Williams. Pratt is much more likely to be a factor at SS for the brewers long term, but Williams is the one who has a better chance at providing Joey Ortiz insurance in 2026. They always could move Turang to SS and play Williams at 2nd if they pull the plug on Ortiz. However, Williams might also be the Garrett Mitchell injury insurance in CF as well. So ultimately it probably makes sense to have Williams see time at SS, 2nd, and CF.

The Keith law write up on our guys seems a tad more optimistic than some. So that’s good to see. espn should have their list out soon too since Kiley McDaniel said he submitted it to the editor today. overall having 5-7 guys rank in the various top 100 is pretty promising and probably 4-5 of those guys will see time with the brewers this year.

lol ya… kinda like that Francisco Cordero trade. It was like we were trying to field half a roster from 1 transaction. overbay and capuano turned out to be decent contributors (I’m going off of memory so if they actually stunk in hindsight I’m sorry). Moeller, Spivey, Counsell all pretty much stunk for us. Maybe if De La Rosa didnt get traded he could’ve worked out for us too, but our pitching development wasn’t all that great at the time.

With the number of veteran free agents out there I’d be surprised if we didn’t add at least one of these guys. signing a guy coming off of injury makes some sense, Montgomery, canning, or even Cortes. These guys are unlikely to be ready at the start of the year but would likely be ready at some point during the year and we could insert them into the rotation after they’ve ramped up and there is a need. Probably something with a club option for a second year. otherwise, Quintan- or Fedde on the cheap make sense. If we have a little extra in the budget maybe Littell or Nick Martinez. it would be kinda cool to sign Verlander. He wasn’t so bad last year and the guy wants to accumulate wins. If he doesn’t care about how much his contract is… we could probably offer 150 innings and a chance to win 10 games. I think it’s an extreme long shot for him to get to 300 wins since he’s 43 and hasn’t won double digits since 2023. He’s 34 away.

That Sexson trade basically brought us our whole starting line up from the d backs. I think we got like 6-7 guys.

I don’t think the Brewers should be immune to criticism and i think it’s even a reasonable take to say they shouldn’t have traded Freddy, but if you’re looking for a nuanced take I don’t think you’ll find it at outkick.

I think there’s a very high probability of Contreras being traded next off season. as far as speculating on trade partners and trade return it’s too early for me to speculate given a number of factors.